


A Brother's Shadow

by BettyBourbon



Series: The Black Shadow Chronicles [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Drabble, F/M, Family, Family Feels, One Shot, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 15:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19930012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyBourbon/pseuds/BettyBourbon
Summary: Images of Aurelia sneaking into the vault of Highever floated across his mind’s eye followed closely by a portrait of Zevran stalking his sister at the celebration after the battle of Denerim. The laugh that had been building in his chest suddenly bubbled over and his friends looked at him oddly.Raising his mug in a toast, he said with pride, “To the Black Shadow.”----------------------One-Shot collection of drabbles discussing Fergus' relationship with Fem!Warden from childhood to post Origins.





	A Brother's Shadow

He had nearly cried when Nan told him the baby brother he had so ardently prayed for was in fact a little sister. What fun would there be in having a little sister? She would want to wear dresses and learn to dance. She would follow around their mother and take up sewing. Her mind would be filled with marriage and babies. 

Fergus did not smile any time he saw Aurelia until she could walk. He could only pout at her in her little bows and her frilly outfits. Six years her senior, he was not interested even remotely in playing big brother to a _girl_. 

But by the time she was three, she had become his shadow. 

She was far too small for an actual sword. Her little arms could not carry it, so he fashioned her a lighter, miniature one out of wood so that she could mimic his practice along side him in the yard. 

Mother would blame him later for Aurelia’s taking up daggers and short swords, for as his sister grew taller and more proficient, she never bothered to practice with the larger blades the rest of her family preferred. Instead, she trained as a rogue. It drove their mother mad, but Fergus could not help but encourage it. When she showed an affinity for scaling the shelves in the library, he took her to the broken-down walls at the north of the keep to practice and by ten she could climb the highest tower without help. When she proved she could be rather stealthy, he forced her to sneak into Nan’s larder for snacks. 

He forced her to keep her twelfth birthday gift a secret for fear mother may disown him, but Aurelia’s smile had been so wide at the lockpicks he couldn’t help but also beam.

* * *

The tears in her eyes had been apparent when he bade her goodbye at the docks in Denerim as he prepared to set sail for Antiva. She was only fourteen and his heart broke to leave his baby sister behind. 

His shadow. 

Within two years, however, he realized that she had grown into a new role. For she had a shadow of her own. 

By the time he could walk, Oren toddled after his aunt like she was the air he breathed. The two were inseparable and it drove Oriana mad, just as it had driven his own mother mad. 

“Do you know where I found him the other day?” she fumed one night as she wrenched a brush through her hair. She refused to look at her husband as she raved about his sister. “On top of the roof to the armory! On top, Fergus! He is three! He could break his neck!”

He had promised to talk to her, but Aurelia had simply dismissed the scolding with a wave of her hand. 

“Have I ever broken my neck?” she countered to his repeating of his wife’s concerns. “A rib, yes. An elbow. Neck, no. He’ll be fine.”

* * *

Oren had not been the only shadow she had gained in their last years at Highever. 

On many occasions his eyes had narrowed as he watched the squires and knights in residence look her body up and down admiringly. They watched her as she practiced in the yard, as she walked through the halls, as she laughed with them at dinner. Even the maids that sometimes accompanied the ladies visiting mother could not help but stare at his sister. 

“Your sister is beyond oblivious,” his mother often sighed. Oriana did not fail to point it out as well, both to him and Aurelia. 

Aurelia, for her part, looked visibly confused any time someone brought the subject up. 

“Lass, you’re getting to an age when people are starting to take…notice,” Fergus had said once as they practiced their shooting one afternoon. 

“Notice of what?” she asked, arching an eyebrow over her bow. 

“Of you, you dolt,” he snapped. “We aren’t exactly an unattractive family.”

She clicked her tongue. “Well, I know I am, but you, dear brother, only caught your wife by being the heir to Highever.”

He smacked her head with the end of his arrow and she chuckled. 

“What do I care if people take notice? You sound like mother. I’m not here to provide companions for Oren. It’s been almost five years. Oriana can pop out another pup if she wants one.”

“We all just want to see you happy, Lia—”

She sighed and shot him a look of annoyance. “Not all of us need to marry beautiful, rich Antivans to be happy, Fergus.”

* * *

Many had told him it was not a good idea to be making this forced march to the capital. His wounds had only just healed. He was going to ware himself out before he even got there, they told him. 

But it was like her presence was with him once more. It was as if her shadow still lingered. 

The news of his family’s murder had reached him before the news of the march for Denerim and that had made the decision for him. He could hear her voice inside his head. 

_”I wish I could go with you.”_

She had wanted so badly to join the fight at Ostagar, had wanted so badly to fight beside him and father. Imagining her now, dead beside their parents, beside his wife and son, Nan, Aldous, all of them, forced him to protect his country. The way he could not be there to protect his family. 

He would do this for her. 

It was only once victory was won and he came out of his haze of battle that he would realize how prolific that thought was. 

“Oi! Fergus!” he heard a fellow officer he’d joined from Ostagar yell to him as he sat down on the stairs of the palace steps. “Why didn’t you say your sister was the Warden?”

“What are you talking about?” Fergus asked, thinking his companion must be mistaken. His sister was dead. 

“Aurelia Cousland, yeah? She’s the warden that killed the archdemon! She’s a hero!”

His breath caught in his throat. Taking his helmet off, he dropped it to the ground, put his head in his hands, and cried.

* * *

He had hugged her with a ferocity that left her yelping in protest, but there were tears in both of their eyes as he told her how proud he was. He made her promise she would come to Highever soon and then let her circulate in the crowd. 

His little sister, his shadow. The Hero of Ferelden. 

He watched her as she walked through the room, but his eyes could not help but catch upon a man – an elf who watched her just as closely as he did. Well, did not watch her per say, but watched the people who watched her. Their eyes met across the hall and the blonde gave a small bow to Fergus before he went back to scanning the crowd. 

It startled Fergus to realize that this man was analyzing every potential threat in the room, looking for openings, waiting for someone to take a shot. It was unnerving. 

His sister had acquired yet another shadow.

* * *

It was six months later when he finally got the chance to confront the blonde about it. Fergus found him alone in the study of Highever. Zevran and his sister had only just returned from their trip to Seheron. They were on their way to deposit Aurelia at her – rather unwilling -- post at Vigil’s Keep when they stopped for a short visit. 

Fergus had heard of Aurelia’s “companion” from her letters and had been briefly introduced earlier in the day, but had not had the chance to speak in depth with the man, but what he had seen put him on edge. Aside from the fact that his Antivan accent brought up painful memories of his wife, Fergus had lived for several months in Antiva and the tattoos on the other man’s face reminded him vaguely of the marks of an assassin’s guild Oriana had once pointed out to him. 

Leave it to Aurelia, he thought with a sigh, hoping his suspicions were wrong. 

“So, Zevran,” he said, his tone serious. “How did you and my sister meet?”

“Ah, well,” Zevran said as he put the book he’d been looking at back on the shelf. “I was hired to kill her and her companions by Arl Howe.”

Fergus was dumbfounded. He wasn’t sure what he found more astounding: the fact that his sister had let the person hired to assassinate her live or the fact that Zevran had no qualms in retelling the tale. 

“Your merciful and, might I add, beautiful, sister, let me live so I could atone for my sins. And here I am.”

“And what is to prevent you from finishing the job?” Fergus growled. 

“As it is, I have become very fond of your sister and would be rather sad if she were to perish,” Zevran said lightly. Fergus narrowed his eyes and growled again. Sensing that his answer was not accepted, Zevran sighed and his eyes became serious as they met Fergus’. “In all truthfulness, I value Aurelia’s life more than I do my own. Should any harm come to her, I would not be able to live with myself.”

They did not discuss it again. 

That night, Fergus was late to dinner and as he arrived, he stopped as he approached the table to watch as Aurelia’s head fell backwards in loud laugh. Zevran had his arm wrapped around her waist and was sharing in her mirth. 

He could hear his mother’s scandalized voice now, but in spite of what an odd pair the two made, it was a relief to see that after all of the trials of the past year, she was happy.

* * *

It has been three years and things had finally started to feel normal again. After leaving an audience with the King that had turned from issues of state to discussing what Aurelia was up to, he left the palace to grab a drink with some old army friends in the market district. 

As he approached their table, he caught the tail end of a conversation that made his ears perk up. 

“—Yeah, I would stay away from Antiva right now. It’s absolute chaos. The Crows are out for blood,” one of his friends was saying, a man who’d gone from army officer to leather merchant. 

“What’s going on in Antiva?” Fergus asked, unable to hide the concern in his voice. 

“Oh, that’s right. Isn’t your sister living there?”

Fergus nodded. “Yes, you were saying?”

“Three grandmasters have died in the past three years and four members of some house. House Ar-something or other.”

Fergus had to bite his tongue to keep the startled laugh from bursting forward. His sister had given enough vague, humorous descriptions in her letters that none of this was shocking, but to hear it second hand from his friends at a bar in Denerim was rather jarring. 

After a moment he asked as nonchalantly as possible, “It isn’t House Arainai, is it?”

“Yes, that’s the one!” his friend said. “Anyways, they aren’t sure who’s doing it. They suspect some rogue Crow, but they think it might be two people. They’re calling whoever it is the Black Shadow.”

Images of Aurelia sneaking into the vault of Highever floated across his mind’s eye followed closely by a portrait of Zevran stalking his sister at the celebration after the battle of Denerim. The laugh that had been building in his chest suddenly bubbled over and his friends looked at him oddly. 

Raising his mug in a toast, he said with pride, “To the Black Shadow.”


End file.
